the problem with Linux is, that all distros do stuff differntly, even if it's the same OS. So writing an out-of-the-Box installer, where you only have to click 'Ok' and 'Next' is probably not that easy, especially if it should create Links at all the important places the distro is keeping for installed programs.

Hey, arne you're kidding man.. Just take a look at : http://www.autopackage.org/. These men did great work, really.. If I had to compile my game with GCJ and distribute it under Linux, I would autopackage it.. seems really great !

so why does nobody tell me about it ?!?+ is java distributed with autopackage?

Any operating system that would EVER require the USER to build it is crap. So it's not like that is a "real" problem. If you are nerdy enough to be compiling the kernel you probably are nerdy enough to follow advice like "Use the source! Luke", where you basically build everything from scratch ... packaged software - crazy talk!

Even windows builds custom kernels during the install process, and occasionally requires the user to rebuild it - for instance if you upgrade your mobo.

*cough* bullshit *cough* <- please note smilie

Actually I can't confirm that this isn't the case, but I certainly have seen nothing that would suggest it to be so, and considering that Windows doesn't even ship a compiler on the install disk, I find it highly unlikely. Yes there are several different kernels and hardware abstraction layers that are auto selected at install time, but I doubt anything is actually compiled at install time when installing Windows XP... But even if it was - *I* didn't have to do it, nor did I even have to be aware that it was happening. That's how it should be of course... forcing every end user to become a developer because your sfotware install process is archaic junk is not the solution.

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The .bin download for the JRE doesn't install properly... it installs all the files, but you are still left with some GNU crud when you type 'java' and there is no tool for configuring which JRE you would like to use.

it is NOT POSSIBLE to screw up your install using pacakges on debian based distros, and as part of that it is generally difficult if not impossible for user-installed "random-crap" (from a package-based OS's perspective, anything not in a package is dangerous, bad, and evil) to break currently installed packages.

Sure, if you want to live with not having any software until some nerd decides to package it for your particular version of Linux. If you are lucky it might happen before your entire kernel is out of date.

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If you just installed java as a .deb package, it would work. What you tried to do was partially break an existing package by downloading and copying onto your hard disk (NB: not "installing") "random crap" that comes with no uninstaller.

Um, no. As far as I could tell there was no existing package for Sun's Java. At least notihing up-to-date. just some GNU crap that should never have been installed since it isn't good for anything.

What I did was run the only installer widely available for Sun's Java.What I did was use what Sun provides.What I did was follow the one obvious and intuitive process that should be the most likely to succeed in the majority of cases. I did what, as far as I'm concerned, is exactly what Sun expects me to do to get their Java onto my Linux machine if it wasn't already available through the GUI provided by the distro for installing known packages. And it if Linux was at all usable it would have worked.

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NB: I'm not criticising you here, just putting it into perspective. What I see most frustrating for newcomers to debian is that fundamental issues like this one are NOT EXPLAINED during the initial install - it would save so much pain if they were! Likewise, newcomers should NEVER be told to use the abominable apt-get, when debian comes with a program with a decent (not excellent) UI - aptitude.

Actually, I just discovered apt-get.. (wish it was documented and had a proper UI - you say that would be 'aptitude' ?), and it saved the day.I had to get Subversion compiled and due to other annoying unixy things, had to of course manually install all sorts of dependancies (that the Subversion team thinks it is reasonable to supply source code only is laughable... but probably inevitable given the sorry state of affaris involving simple things like installing software for Linux)apt-get was my saviour there.. since I first checked the GUI package manager/software installer thingy and found absolutely nothing that I needed - basic things like GCC were not available via the Ubuntu package manager.apt-get, which I had only seen a few references too in other Linux posts worked beautifully. Now, I admit I won't be surprized if it totally screwed my Linux install.. because that is what I have come to expect from Linux. But it seems to have worked well.

I find it strange that Windows and Mac don't have these problems of having the end users dig around to install all these dependancies. On Windows or Mac you get an installer and you run it and you are done. No wild goose chases involved, unless of course you are installing a package developed by unix nerds and ported to Windows/Mac as an after-thought.

The Linux community desparately needs to solve that problem.

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The process involves repackaging the Sun download first.. and ultimately the instructions don't work because if you follow them exactly they simply fail with errors a couple steps in.

This would presumably be the script I referred to earlier, which used to work perfectly for java 1.1.x up to 1.4.x, but then broke on sun's 1.5.x. They really really need to fix it .

I believe the problem was that the script assumed that various C and C++ compilers were available... and quite frankly I did too, since I've never seen a unix install without them. But Ubuntu did not install them and had no option to install them... I have them now, by running apt-get, as I neede them for Subversion. (Funny thing, Subversion required me to install C++ , which didn't come by default with the rest of the GNU compiler stuff for some reason, even though Subversion is coded enitrely in C and purposely avoided C++. Why did they avoid C++ , given that you can use C++ as a "better C" if you choose? I found that funny, but I looked it up and it seems the decision to use only C was because C++ was unreliable on unix -- can you believe it? I can, because I've used Linux

Even windows builds custom kernels during the install process, and occasionally requires the user to rebuild it - for instance if you upgrade your mobo.

*cough* bullshit *cough* <- please note smilie

Shrug. Whatever. I used to be an NT sysadmin. I've had to deal with this. Search the knowledgebase for something like "taking a disk image of windows and installing it in a new computer" - win2k and IIRC xp too can fail to boot completely because they have a custom kernel that doesnt match the hardware they're installed on. It was all about the HAL, IIRC (surprise!). Off the top of my head, there are 4 or 5 basic kernels for windows, and there's some modular bits on top. You only get what you need when you run the installer.

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But even if it was - *I* didn't have to do it, nor did I even have to be aware that it was happening.

Except, as I pointed out (from personal experience), that it *can* and *does* happen that windows users have to deal with this. Sigh.

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That's how it should be of course... forcing every end user to become a developer because your sfotware install process is archaic junk is not the solution.

Of course. And I've spent a long time trying to persuade a lot of people that "recompile your kernel" is NOT a valid solution to common problems .

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it is NOT POSSIBLE to screw up your install using pacakges on debian based distros, and as part of that it is generally difficult if not impossible for user-installed "random-crap" (from a package-based OS's perspective, anything not in a package is dangerous, bad, and evil) to break currently installed packages.

Sure, if you want to live with not having any software until some nerd decides to package it for your particular version of Linux. If you are lucky it might happen before your entire kernel is out of date.

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No, there is no "if" about it. This is the way it works. You cannot install stuff otherwise. This is fundamental to Debian the OS, and for many people it is all there is to Debian.

Packaging is generally up to date, and nowadays pretty much all linux software is covered - but that;s an *entirely* separate issue .

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If you just installed java as a .deb package, it would work. What you tried to do was partially break an existing package by downloading and copying onto your hard disk (NB: not "installing") "random crap" that comes with no uninstaller.

Um, no. As far as I could tell there was no existing package for Sun's Java. At least notihing up-to-date. just some GNU crap that should never have been installed since it isn't good for anything.

See my previous post. There is a package, it converts teh Sun download into a genuine debian package, I've been using it on everything from live servers with tens of thousands of clients down to my Dell laptop. For FUBAR political reasons, several debian maintainers try to deny its existence. Please direct furious rants in their direction, they are only causing large amoutns of pain for a long line of newcomers to debian, but seem completely impervious to all reasonable attempts at sanity .

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I did what, as far as I'm concerned, is exactly what Sun expects me to do to get their Java onto my Linux machine if it wasn't already available through the GUI provided by the distro for installing known packages. And it if Linux was at all usable it would have worked.

See above. If it weren't for a bunch of idiots, you wouldn't have been through this crap. IMHO, it's totally unacceptable and I have no idea why they persist in it.

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Actually, I just discovered apt-get.. (wish it was documented and had a proper UI - you say that would be 'aptitude' ?), and it saved the day.

It is documented, both with intereactive help (-h, not very good but a quick reference) and man pages.

Man pages are *the* unix form of documentation, so...

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Now, I admit I won't be surprized if it totally screwed my Linux install.. because that is what I have come to expect from Linux. But it seems to have worked well.

Nope - see above: it is guaranteed not to have screwed your linux install (modulo very rare occasions where a bug leaks through. I've only ever seen that happen once in my life out of hundreds of thousands of installs)

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I find it strange that Windows and Mac don't have these problems of having the end users dig around to install all these dependancies.

Yeah, windows has DLL hell instead, and registry-hell. You're comparing apples to oranges. Windows shunts these problems out of the install script and elsehwere in the OS, but the same problems exist and are just as bad. I think the only reason more people don't realise this is that it takes a fairly deep understanding of the two OS's to see this, because of their different designs.

See my previous post. There is a package, it converts teh Sun download into a genuine debian package, I've been using it on everything from live servers with tens of thousands of clients down to my Dell laptop. For FUBAR political reasons, several debian maintainers try to deny its existence. Please direct furious rants in their direction, they are only causing large amoutns of pain for a long line of newcomers to debian, but seem completely impervious to all reasonable attempts at sanity .

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I did what, as far as I'm concerned, is exactly what Sun expects me to do to get their Java onto my Linux machine if it wasn't already available through the GUI provided by the distro for installing known packages. And it if Linux was at all usable it would have worked.

See above. If it weren't for a bunch of idiots, you wouldn't have been through this crap. IMHO, it's totally unacceptable and I have no idea why they persist in it.

Okay, we agree... But the bunch of idiots are there, they run the show... and so I did have to go through all that crap and the point is moot. What you are basically saying is that the problem wouldn't exist if it was solved...no kidding?

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Actually, I just discovered apt-get.. (wish it was documented and had a proper UI - you say that would be 'aptitude' ?), and it saved the day.

It is documented, both with intereactive help (-h, not very good but a quick reference) and man pages.

Man pages are *the* unix form of documentation, so...

Well that may be what passed for documentation in the 1970's.. but it is almost a "hidden feature". The primary issue is that I have to do the work of installing dependancies manually to get things to work. The user experience is awful. In many cases I have to compile code myself, as an end user. And thus I am forced to deal with the compiler warnings and errors that come up as if it was MY job to debug the damn stuff. It's ridiculous.

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I find it strange that Windows and Mac don't have these problems of having the end users dig around to install all these dependancies.

Yeah, windows has DLL hell instead, and registry-hell. You're comparing apples to oranges. Windows shunts these problems out of the install script and elsehwere in the OS, but the same problems exist and are just as bad. I think the only reason more people don't realise this is that it takes a fairly deep understanding of the two OS's to see this, because of their different designs.

Registry hell? Never heard of it, and as far as I can guess, I've never experienced it.DLL Hell? That general problem that is "shared libraries" that is just as bad on Linux?It actually never happens these days.. because Microsoft finally started documenting what DLLs were to be installed in shared locations (system32) and what the rules must be for replacing them. All other DLLs are placed in the application directory these days such that DLL Hell has been a "solved" problem for years.

To claim that the problems are "just as bad" on Windows is ridiculous. This problem is now very rare on Windows.. I haven't seen it happen this millenium. :-). Yet I have encountered the issue numerous times while trying to deal with Linux.

In an ideal world .deb packages would be the only thing provided for Linux software installs. You would download them, from anywhere, because they would all work with all versions of Linux - at least for the same processor architecture, you would double click it and that would be all there is to it. We are still a long way from that.

Side note:Actually Java is repeating those "DLL Hell" mistakes with JAR Hell... so people have to come to these forums to discover that they shouldn't have installed JOGL in the "ext" folder of the JRE.. where it intuitively belongs, but logically can't be placed. Will we ever learn? :-)

Were way off-opic, sort of... and I stand by my original claims that the best Linux to use is the one you can get to work, because using linux generally offers a vastly inferior user experience.. it's like the OS has been in perpetual beta with tons of problems for the last decade or so. IT occassionally seems to be working well... then you try to get work done and hit a brick wall. That's been my experience every single time I give it a try... And I WANT it to work well... I only try it over and over again, because I have hope that one day it will "work".. but today it is clearly in last place. Mac OS X provides the best user experience... (though it comes with it's own issues). Windows is a distant second... and Linux is not even on the map. I expect that Vista will close the gap a bit on OS X... but there is still no solution in sight for the problems that plague Linux.

swpalmer, Linux is far ahead of Windows in my humble user experience. I'm sorry things don't work out for you. You keep talking about recompilation of kernels and programs, stuff I've never had to do. Installation of software is generally a "click, click, click, apply"-experience with synaptic without any rummaging around on the internet. I've installed, like, three programs which were not in the synaptic databases, and those programs are unusable to non-geeks. Last, the amount of guides and howtos that are available ensure the solution of any remaining worthwhile problem I have yet encountered, which mostly have to do with bad driver support of ATI, and that is unfortunate but it is not an actual linux problem.

I don't want to turn this into a flamewar, but you state stuff which is technically false, highly subjective or questionable, etc.. I, too, could go on for hours about my infinite problems with all versions of Windows, but no one wants to hear that. It probably doesn't apply to others, because they have other hardware or whatever.

swpalmer, Linux is far ahead of Windows in my humble user experience. I'm sorry things don't work out for you. You keep talking about recompilation of kernels and programs, stuff I've never had to do.

Blah^3 brought it up, I simply mentioned how absurd it is. I have never done it myself, I was commenting based on what I was told by others.

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Installation of software is generally a "click, click, click, apply"-experience with synaptic without any rummaging around on the internet. I've installed, like, three programs which were not in the synaptic databases, and those programs are unusable to non-geeks.

What is synaptic? I've never encountered the term before, but I've only tried RedHat, SuSE and Ubuntu.It's not like I'm trying to make things difficult for myself. I follow the Ui menus to the bit that says "install software" and search for what I want in the list. I have found that if you don't find it, you're generally screwed and the goose chase begins.

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Last, the amount of guides and howtos that are available ensure the solution of any remaining worthwhile problem I have yet encountered, which mostly have to do with bad driver support of ATI, and that is unfortunate but it is not an actual linux problem.

I have seen such things and sought them out when I've had problems. I find they are often incomplete or simply don't work. A case in point is the thread mentioned above about installing Sun's Java. I've had the same experience trying to get Samba to work in the past.

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I don't want to turn this into a flamewar,

Nor do I. I simply hope to spare some people from the agony that I have experienced.

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but you state stuff which is technically false, highly subjective or questionable, etc..

I've only documented what I have personally experienced. If you believe it to be false I can't stop you, but you are going to have a hard time proving your case to me.

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I, too, could go on for hours about my infinite problems with all versions of Windows, but no one wants to hear that. It probably doesn't apply to others, because they have other hardware or whatever.

I have had my share of problems with every OS I've used. Perhaps I set my expectations too high. But I'm no novice. OS X certainly isn't an exception: e.g. printer support on a Windows network is quite poor. Connecting iPod's and removable flash media often leads to lock ups., etc.

I'm just stating the facts. I don't claim that they represent the experience of anyone but myself. But they are most certainly not fabricated and I know that most of my colleagues have had similar experiences with Linux. (We are not a dumb bunch.)You are of course entitled to your opinion that "Linux is far ahead of Windows" , but quite frankly I find that notion hilarious, because in my experience it has been so vastly inferior to any other OS I've tried in the last 20 years, not counting the C64, DOS, or Windows 3.1 through WinME (I went straight to Windows NT). And trust me I *love* to hate Microsoft

It is documented, both with intereactive help (-h, not very good but a quick reference) and man pages.

Man pages are *the* unix form of documentation, so...

Well that may be what passed for documentation in the 1970's.. but it is almost a "hidden feature".

IMHO you stepped over the line from justified complaint into ridiculous ranting with that statement. Man pages are known to work *everywhere* for *every* unix application, are extremely good, are trivial to use, etc. Objecting to manpages is losing the plot.

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The primary issue is that I have to do the work of installing dependancies manually to get things to work. The user experience is awful. In many cases I have to compile code myself, as an end user. And thus I am forced to deal with the compiler warnings and errors that come up as if it was MY job to debug the damn stuff. It's ridiculous.

I haven't compiled anything on linux other than kernels for the last 3 years. And only about twice in the preceding 3 years (both times to do with certain non-mass-market hardware, like big graphics tablets).

I *do not* compile under linux. I hate it. I hate C (I never ever want to be paid to program C again - far too painful - I certainly don't want to be fixing other people's C source) which gives me irrational desires to avoid all C++ compilation too.

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To claim that the problems are "just as bad" on Windows is ridiculous. This problem is now very rare on Windows.. I haven't seen it happen this millenium. :-). Yet I have encountered the issue numerous times while trying to deal with Linux.

Sorry, I meant the same fundamental problems exist, and are solved in different ways. Things like .deb and aptitude solve a lot of the problems you're citing, and I could dig out windows users who have similar problems or complaints with Windows's solutions for the same fundamental problems - I was pointing out that although "installing software" may not have obvious problems, other parts of the same problem space (solved or not) *do* have obvious problems on windows.

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In an ideal world .deb packages would be the only thing provided for Linux software installs. You would download them, from anywhere, because they would all work with all versions of Linux - at least for the same processor architecture, you would double click it and that would be all there is to it. We are still a long way from that.

This is, in fact, my experience. Except I dont click, I use an ANSI interactive menu system - and dont notice that I'm losing anything over a mouse GUI.

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Side note:Actually Java is repeating those "DLL Hell" mistakes with JAR Hell... so people have to come to these forums to discover that they shouldn't have installed JOGL in the "ext" folder of the JRE.. where it intuitively belongs, but logically can't be placed. Will we ever learn? :-)

Webstart fixes that . Explicitly (by design)!

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Sorry for taking up so much space with these mostly irrelvant posts

Not really. The more that people rant about the **** that try to stop people using java on debian, the better, IMHO .

It is documented, both with intereactive help (-h, not very good but a quick reference) and man pages.

Man pages are *the* unix form of documentation, so...

Well that may be what passed for documentation in the 1970's.. but it is almost a "hidden feature".

IMHO you stepped over the line from justified complaint into ridiculous ranting with that statement. Man pages are known to work *everywhere* for *every* unix application, are extremely good, are trivial to use, etc. Objecting to manpages is losing the plot.

Sorry, the "hidden feature" I refer to is apt-get itself, not man pages. As far as command-line tools go (and no end-user should be *required* to use the command line these days... that's just dumb), man pages are fairly reasonable... for a system administrator... in the 70's . (Which I guess is the role I was playing.) Of course they only work once you've found the command you need the docs for.

[moving to an even higher rant level]Maybe I should have tried to access the box with a teletype terminal, if that's the expected user interface for interacting with Linux these days. Ridiculous ranting? Hardly. I call it it simple observation. "man pages" do contain the needed info, but you have go back in time 25 years or so to qualify them as "extremely good" - there's no diagrams, no hyper-links, no decent search facility, no colour (apart from 'bold' - oooooh), no interactivity. They are designed to be reminders for people that already are unix geeks. They are designed for computer scientists, not the users of today (or the last 20 years).[..rant level back to normal]

The point being that the user experience is presented as a point-and-click modern UI, but it's really just faking it. I'm forced to use the 70's technology of a unix command shell and man pages to do something as fundamental as install a program. Not to mention that I had to find out about apt-get by luck in the first place before I could even conjure up the man page.

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The primary issue is that I have to do the work of installing dependancies manually to get things to work. The user experience is awful. In many cases I have to compile code myself, as an end user. And thus I am forced to deal with the compiler warnings and errors that come up as if it was MY job to debug the damn stuff. It's ridiculous.

I haven't compiled anything on linux other than kernels for the last 3 years. And only about twice in the preceding 3 years (both times to do with certain non-mass-market hardware, like big graphics tablets).

You had to compile the kernel to install a device driver! What a joke. It's Pathetic. Absurd. I had thought that the Linux folks solved that problem by now.And to think I've heard Linux folks laugh at how Windows needs to restart after installing various bits of software... Rebuilding the OS from source is an improvement?

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I *do not* compile under linux. I hate it. I hate C (I never ever want to be paid to program C again - far too painful - I certainly don't want to be fixing other people's C source) which gives me irrational desires to avoid all C++ compilation too.

As I mentioned, not only was this required to install Subversion, source code is actually the only form in which it is distributed by the developers. Yes, others in the community eventually solve the problem by doing the rest of the work of compiling the app and making platform-specific installers.. but there is still no Windows installer for the latest version of Subversion after a few weeks, and so far I've only seen one Linux package that was made available recently.

A few years ago when attempting to get Samba to work.. the "experts" all told me to go get the source and build it myself... which was next to impossible due to dependency issues.. and didn't help anyway. Of course that time Windows was likely half the problem.

I'm not just whining randomly.. this (or something equally irritating) has come up every time I've given a new Linux distro a try, for the past several years.

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In an ideal world .deb packages would be the only thing provided for Linux software installs. You would download them, from anywhere, because they would all work with all versions of Linux - at least for the same processor architecture, you would double click it and that would be all there is to it. We are still a long way from that.

This is, in fact, my experience. Except I dont click, I use an ANSI interactive menu system - and dont notice that I'm losing anything over a mouse GUI.

If you are using an ANSI interactive menu system chances are you have already gone to a command prompt, so for a typical user you are already well beyond their comfort zone.

But as I stated earlier... this option was not presented to me when I wanted to install various packages on Ubuntu. The "advertised" UI for installing software that I found in the equivalent of the windows "Start" menu did not offer the packages I needed. The goose chase began...

If apt-get is the way it is supposed to be done, then doesn't it make sense for it to be placed in plain sight like the other package manager was?

Keep in mind that I did find apt-get, I did manage to get Subversion built... but I was irritated the whole time. The process was not just different from the typical Windows or Mac experience, it was archaic by comparison. That I find myself in that situation repeatedly, that it appears to be the accepted norm, should be an embarrassment for the Linux community, but they seem to thrive on the fact that they can show off their nerdy l33t skillz and compile things from scratch or pop into a bash shell to fetch a few missing packages instead of providing a reasonable user-experience.

Many of the users here make sure their code runs on Linux. How many make Debian packages for their games? Something like a simple, double-clickable installer that will go fetch the sun-java package to install Java if it isn't already installed and install the game complete with desktop and "start" menu shortcuts? How many of the people here even know how to do that?Thankfully they don't need to for Java apps because we have Web Start.. but hopefully my point still gets through... In general there doesn't seem to be a Linux equivalent of "setup.exe" that works as well and is actually used consistently. Linux generally doesn't seem to have anything that simple and it appears to be decades away from the simple drag and drop install of OS X. (If that ever catches on outside of the Mac environment at all.)

It's just another 'top secret' feature. First you said that there was no GUI for installing software (1½ page ago or so). I pointed out that:

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Swpalmer, press System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager.

This post must evidently have gone unnoticed, which is fine. But I cannot understand how you keep complaining about the lack of GUIs and the 'secret' apt-get and aptitude things when the package manager GUI is right there in the menu! If you press Applications -> Add Applications you get an even simpler interface, but synaptic can be launched by entering 'advanced' mode. You can add more software repositories there, for example.

It's just another 'top secret' feature. First you said that there was no GUI for installing software (1½ page ago or so). I pointed out that:

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Swpalmer, press System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager.

This post must evidently have gone unnoticed, which is fine.

Yes it did, sorry. I can't find where I ever said Linux has *no* GUI for installing software... I complained about the GUI that I did find though

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But I cannot understand how you keep complaining about the lack of GUIs and the 'secret' apt-get and aptitude things when the package manager GUI is right there in the menu! If you press Applications -> Add Applications you get an even simpler interface, but synaptic can be launched by entering 'advanced' mode. You can add more software repositories there, for example.

When I reboot into Ubuntu I will check again. Perhaps I just was confused because I didn't think I wanted to manage "synaptic packages", or maybe I just missed it plain and simple.. or maybe for some reason it isn't there.. I don't know until I reboot.

But don't lose sight of my point that on Windows or Mac none of this knowledge is needed to install software. It is a much more direct and simple process. Download, double click... next, next, next. Or on Mac, download, double click, drag, drop.No finding the right tool... no scanning lists of packages... no being several versions behind because the latest version hasn't been blessed into an installable package. As a developer I can make an installer for windows or a disk image for Mac and that's it.. my software is now available to everyone running Windows or Mac.There are some advantages of the blessed packages though... there is probably some additional protection from malicious software. In theory there is less chance of something getting hosed.

I should appologise for my ranting... It's just that I've always found the "Linux experience" to be a very frustrating one... I have a degree in Computer Engineering... Heck! I've written a real-time, premptive, multitasking kernel in hand-coded assembler... installing software should be easy

As it is, I install a new version of Linux every 18 months or so to see if it is usable yet.. I use it for several weeks and then conclude that it is not. Whereas, a few years ago when I got my powerbook, I had not used Mac OS since 1984, and yet I instantly fell in love with it. Or go back a few more years to 1995, when I graduated and got a job programming on Windows NT... Windows sucked compared to the Amiga system I had used previously, but installing software was never a problem and I could generally cope with it even though I hated it. Since then I've tried Linux off and on and other than a couple occassions (where I was amazed that the installer did the right thing, or that the distribution supported the old hardware I had better than Windows), it has generally disappointed me the most. Stuck in there in the late 90's was some brief fiddling with BeOS, it was a delight. Better than Windows without doubt, something that could have given the Mac some good competition.. If BeOS was a viable choice I probably wouldn't have got a Mac.

So I will give an OS a chance... I'm not stuck on my favourite (Mac OS X) and unwilling to learn something new. I'm not anti-unix. Both Mac OS X and BeOS (my two most recent favourites) are unix-based. But they did some critical things to make unix more user-friendly and Linux has not. Linux tried to clone the Windows 95 UI on the desktop.. but it leaves out the bits that made it slightly usable.

Of all the people I know, I'm actually the most "Linux tolerant" ... whenever I boot into Linux at work it only takes a few minutes before someone laughs. And asks "why?"

FWIW, swpalmer is not alone. In the past several years I have had a hate-hate relationship with Linux. It is much better now than it was in, say, 1997. Ubuntu installed for me without a hitch. I didn't have to manually configure the X Server or anything. But it still is not a user-friendly OS. People who have taken the time to learn their way around Linux (or who have been taught) will surely be comfortable writing sed scripts, compiling kernels, and doing all of those crazy things Linux types do. But for someone like me (and apparently swpalmer) who wants to boot into an OS and not worry about all of the little headaches, Linux just doesn't cut it.

It's too much work to get graphics card drivers to function, there are too many dependencies, most distros install a bunch of garbage I don't want but that a zillion utilities I don't use depend on, programs scatter files all over the place (the home directory I can live with, but having libraries over there, log files over here, documentation out that way - it's friggin ridiculous), if you want to uninstall something that didn't come in a deb package or rpm you're going to be searching all over for stuff it installs (of course, grep can make that easier but it's just one more tool to learn)... What I'm getting at is that it just takes more work to use Linux than I'm willing to put into it. I don't have the time to invest to get comfortable with everything I need to know. Every time I try a new version I spend more time trying to make things work than getting any work done. It's wholly unproductive. Windows is hands down easier to use out of the box, and that means more productivity to me.

I do have Ubuntu running on my LAN, as a SVN, ftp, mysql and Apache server. I decided not to install any form of XWindows at all and actually cut out as much of the default crap as I could. I only hit the KVM switch to log into it when I need to update my packages with apt-get. Other than that, I do very little with it, though I have gradually learned my way around it a bit more. For me, that's all I need it to be. When they make a Linux distro that is as easy to use as Windows and doesn't require you to pore through man pages and howtos to get anything done, then it will be something I'd be interested in using more.

On Windows the JDK download will also install a public JRE, not just the JRE that is inside the JDK folder.

I also attempted to follow those instructions to install Java 6 b80.. but they do not work for that. (Java 6 installs cleanly on Windows without any hacking around.)

Java performance, mainly graphics (e.g. Turtle Combat) seems low compared to Windows on the same machine and a slower Mac, but I need to take measurements.

Hmm. it seems Ubuntu may have installed a single-processor kernel on my multi-processor PC.Only a single processor shows up under "Device Manager" and even it is not identified. (Vendor and Device "unknown"!)But it says the PC has two power buttons (it has only one that I'm aware of.)

Actually I search the Ubuntu site and found instructions that said to use Synaptic to search for 'linux-image' and install the SMP kernel packages... (which of course the Ubuntu installer should have done automatically)

So I did...

And the SMP kernel fails with a null pointer dereference during boot time.

It was not the same kernel version that is shown in that URL though... I'm using "Breezy" not "Dapper". Perhaps a more major upgrade will fix things.

Not an acceptable user experience nonetheless. Even if it did work... asking an end-user to manually select a kernel image is fairly ridiculous. It's alright for techies like you and I, but most users don't even know what a kernel is, and they should need to be aware that it even exists.

I agree, but : do you see any way to avoid that ? heh, you could detect SMP at installation and then loads the correct kernel, that'd be a way. The great thing with ubuntu is, just post that onto their forums, and you're sure to see that for Dapper, or for Dapper+1.

Changin your kernel is something drastic, an user is unlikely to update his kernel if he is fitting his needs (there are still a lot of people working on 2.4 kernels) ie, modules, hw support, etc... but anyway, apt-get update, then apt-get upgrade and at last apt-get dist-upgrade should update the kernel image IF your distro's maintainter estimate that a newer kernel will fit better.

Either you are the less lucky one on earth with a linux install (which i thought it was myself) or you are screwing your linux in a lot of strange ways .

After following those instructions 'java' and 'javac' are the 1.5.0_06 versions, but running 'javaws' still gives the Java 1.5.0_05 version from the JRE that was previously installed.

Very useful command under any unix is "which". "which javaws" will tell you what is actually being called when you type javaws. (Likely itsb a symlink, doing an ls -l on that will show you where the symlink is pointing to.)

JK

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Java performance, mainly graphics (e.g. Turtle Combat) seems low compared to Windows on the same machine and a slower Mac, but I need to take measurements.

If this is 3D make sure your 3D acceleration is enabled. easiest way to do this is to run the "glgears" demo. If you see framerates in the thousands then youve got acceleration, If you say frame rates in the hundreds then you dont.

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How do I get the proper SMP kernel installed?

That I cant help you with. Google it with the phrase "HowTo" as one of the match terms. Thats the bets way to find instructions to do anything under Linux.

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Thanks Jeff, but I know 'which' -- in fact if you look only a few posts up you will see that I used "which" to follow the links and show how installing the JDK was somewhat "incomplete" by leaving the javaws command linked to the old JRE.

So I upgraded to the Dapper Drake (Ubuntu 6.06) beta.. I figured it isn't work well anyway, so how could a beta be worse

After the upgrade, which went fairly smooth, the X Server was completely broken. Thankfully I remembered blah^3 siad that aptitude was a text mode package manager so I fired it up to see if there was some nvidia stuff I could install.

Aptitude has a pretty brutal interface.. but I managed to suffer through it enough to find some sort of nvidia-glx package, install it, find the magic command "sudo nvidia-glx-config enable" after which I manually started the X Server and it ran! So I decided to reboot to see if the GUI would come up clean.

But first I decided to install the SMP kernel...

The SMP kernel in dapper still failed in exactly the same way as the breezy version.

Conclusion: Ubuntu ships a broken SMP kernel and has for the past 6 months. I have yet to search to see if this is a known issue or there is a known workaround.

So I reboot with the non-SMP kernel and it does cleanly boot to the GUI login screen... so here I am.

The UI in general seems a little faster.The graphics in Java (Turtle Combat again) are notably faster.

If it weren't for the broken X Server after upgrading and the fact that I can't run the correct kernel so half of my CPU power goes unused, and I have to manually configure and install Java to get a recent and working JRE/JDK, it would almost be usable.

silly question: are you installing the proper kernel image package? it happened to me that i was installing the 2.6.16-k7-1 package and i didn't get it to boot until i installed 2.6.16-k7 dummy package, wich has some important dependeces. No distro ships broken packages on the stable branch, so obviously you are doing it wrong.

Going for dapper is a BAD idea if you want it the easy way. Make your mind to fix a lot of things each time you run an upgrade, if you don't know what you're doing, don't use the testing distros.

No distro ships broken packages on the stable branch, so obviously you are doing it wrong.

Hahahahahahahahahah

Oh, that was a good one. That's like saying there are no bugs in Windows.

I am installing the exact same package that I already had except in this case I pick the one with -SMP tacked on the end. And of course it's not me that should be doing "it" in the first place. Ubuntu installed the wrong kernel on my multi-processor system... Hmm.. maybe it knows the SMP kernel doesn't work .

I'm using Ubuntu 5.10 with the SMP kernel at work and it seems to work fine. Ubuntu was the only distro I could get working cause I'm about as far from a Linux guru as anyone could be.

For those interested in getting Sun's VM on Ubuntu, there's a howto for Java if you go to Help-->Beginner's guide-->Applications-->Java. There's some fiddling involved before you can grab non-GPL packages so it won't be quite as simple as Windows' neat wizards, but I guess that's fair considering Ubuntu's UI budget compared to Microsoft's.

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